Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

Gwyneth Paltrow leads Hollywood women back to the kitchen sink

Gwyneth Paltrow is telling women who want a family to stay at home. Even if she is "a big deal" (presumably, like Paltrow), a woman who wants a happy family must learn to put herself second. In the "equation" of marriage, first place must be reserved for her husband and children. Compromise is the name of the game.

Women all over the world will issue a collective sigh of relief: oh thank goodness that Gwyneth has finally revealed the secrets of playing happy families. Without her we would never have guessed that life is about a big ego making the necessary adjustments to accomodate another big ego — not to mention the unbridled egos of a brood of mini-mes. If Gwyneth hadn't told "Harper's Bazaar" that she thinks children need Mummy to be around a lot, and that husbands really like to have wives cooking supper for them when they come home, we'd never have known it.

But hang on: before I rush to the kitchen and don my pinny, I'd like to ask a question of perfect Miss Paltrow. What about HIM? My understanding of an "equation" is that there are two elements. If the same is true of marriage, where is Gwyneth's advice to hubby that he too must compromise? If wife drops her big career to cook him shepherd's pie (more like mung bean loaf in the Paltrow home) and to read Where the Wild Things Are to the toddlers, what's on his must-do list? If marriage is the great and wonderful adventure that Gwyneth claims it is, then husbands have to be engaged participants, not revered icons. He needs to have invested something in the family — or he'll take it for granted, grow bored, and take off.

Ordinary women, as opposed to Hollywood stars, know this full well. They know the danger of giving up every shred of hard-won independence. Once they have a family, what they really want is a part time job. When I looked into this for the Centre for Policy Studies, I found women were clear: they want to have one foot in the professional arena, to enjoy the advantages of socialising, financial independence, and stimulus associated with working; while the other remains firmly panted in the domestic domain, benefiting the family. For this scenario to work, real women know they must get real men to compromise too. Monday-Thursday suppers may not be ready when he comes through the door; he may need to do the school run on those days, too.

Alas, life is not a Hollywood movie. Ordinary women don't have many opportunities for part time work: there simply aren't enough part time jobs, because employers hate them as costly, bureaucratic and time-consuming. This means some women, because they don't enjoy a Hollywood salary or the luxury of being married to a rock star, end up working fulltime, against their wishes; while others will stay at home, again against their wishes. Both sets of women feel frustrated, guilty and angry: this is not compromise, this is unhappiness.

Unfortunately, this ordinary woman's plight does not make for a feel-good Hollywood blockbuster. I can't picture stars like Mischa Barton or Julia Roberts queuing up to play a grumpy mother, with lanky hair and no make up because she doesn't have the time for grooming, with rolls of baby fat she's never managed to lose, and a strangulated wail in her voice because she's always so CROSS.

What Hollywood will pounce on, instead, is Gwyneth's fairytale: a woman with a great talent finds love, and happily, meekly, gives up her profession in order to spoonfeed her children home-made delicacies and toast her husband's slippers by the fire. So expect a host of films in the next few years, possibly starring Gwyneth herself, featuring a happy wife and mother who once had it all and now only wants a compromise.